Misandry may be exhibited to differing degrees. In its most overt expression, a misandrist openly hates all men simply because they are ‘men’, exhibiting ‘masculine’ traits that are not to the speaker's liking. Stereotypically, these ‘masculine’ traits include machismo, emotional bluntness, and a loutish demeanor. Or, a misandrist might simply hate men for a perceived common physical attribute, such as large muscles, a large gut, or copious body hair.

Other forms of misandry are more subtle. Some misandrists simply hold all men under suspicion, or hate men who do not conform to one or more acceptable categories. Entire cultures may be said to be misandrist if they treat men in ways that are perceived hurtful. Misandry is often not recognised, since it exists under many different guises, disguised and qualified. {Judith Levine, ‘My Enemy, My Love’, 1992}

Misandry is a negative attitude towards men as a group, and as such need not fully determine a misandrist's attitude towards each individual man. The fact that someone holds misandrist views may not prevent them from having positive relationships with some men. Conversely, simply having positive relationships with some men does not necessarily mean someone does not also hold misandrist views.

Then there's the categories for Misandrists.

* Male feminists or what Nathanson and Young call “honorary women” who self-righteously defend women from men to seek favor from women.* Ideological feminists who see all men as evil brutes and all women as ‘good’ human beings* Women who justify misandry is a legitimate “choice” for women or a “voice” for those who have been “silenced.”* Women who justify misandry as an expedient for political purposes.* Women who justify misandry with “something far more sinister in mind: revenge”.

Many of the quotes listed in the section below from famous feminist misandrists contain one or more of the types of misandry.

Nathan and Young noted the following types of man-hating behavior in Spreading Misandry (2001):

* Laughing at Men: The Last of Vaudeville* Looking Down on Men: Separate but Unequal* Bypassing men: Women Alone Together* Blaming Men: A History of Their Own* Dehumanizing Men: From Bad Boys to Beasts* Demonizing Men: The Devil is a Man

There are plenty of people fighting against this, however.

Masculist writer Warren Farrell compares dehumanizing stereotyping of men to dehumanization of the Vietnamese people as “gooks”.

In the past quarter century, we exposed biases against other races and called it racism, and we exposed biases against women and called it sexism. Biases against men we call humor. â€”Warren Farrell, Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say

Religious Studies professors Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young make similar comparisons in their three-book series Beyond the Fall of Man, which treats misandry as a form of prejudice and discrimination that has become institutionalized in North American society. Nathanson and Young credit “ideological feminism” for imposing misandry on culture.

Their book Spreading Misandry (2001) analyzes “pop cultural artifacts and productions from the 1990s” from movies to greeting cards for what they consider contains pervasive messages of hatred toward men. Legalizing Misandry (2005) the second in the series, gives similar attention to laws in North America.

The Misogyny side–

There's already been so much said for it in the public so I'll just sum this up in talking about the different degrees and types of Misogyny.

* Religious Misogyny. Religion often talks about the roles of men and women. Usually, most people read the text as it telling everyone that men and women equally depend on and need each other. Not only that, but that the traditional roles that they are to play are equally important to society just as it is to themselves. But, a lot of people confuse the religious texts words, and believe it's actually telling them that a woman's only role is to be a submissive housewife who never questions anything her husband says. And that she must always be submissive towards men, even if she is not married yet. and it's more than just gender roles, a lot of religions also have this huge fear of sex, and Christianity/Islam in general seem to have a huge dread of feminine seduction. Islam in general seem to especially emphasize this, with women being more likely to be sexual predators than men in their stories.

*Misogynistic Feminists Seems like a oxymoron, doesn't it? But those types seem to actually exist. Basically, those types seems to feel that if a woman acts too feminine or whatever, then she cannot be a strong, intelligent figure as well. That in order for a woman to be strong, powerful and even intelligent nowadays, she must disavow all her femininity and act like a man completely. So no long hairstyles, no wearing pink, and so on forth if you want to be taken seriously as a strong, powerful figure. For only a woman who acts like a man could ever be strong, powerful or even intelligent. Despite the fact that there are already powerful and intelligent women who actually act pretty damn girly.

*Traditionalists. people who hold traditional values, and hates any women who does not adhere to those traditional values, even to the point of claiming that those non-traditional women caused “the decay of society”. some women hold this view too as well.

*Judging genders by strengths and weaknesses, emphasis on weakness. the old adage– if a women is physically weaker, then she cannot do the work of men, much less do anything a man do.

Feminist theory:In the late 20th century, feminist theorists alleged that misogyny is both a cause and result of patriarchal social structures.

Traditional feminist theorists paint many different attitudes as misogyny. According to feminists, in its most overt expression, a misogynist will openly hate all women simply because they are female.

In feminist theory, other forms of misogyny may be less overt. Some alleged misogynists may simply be prejudiced against all women, or may hate women who do not fall into one or more acceptable categories. Subscribers to one model claim that some misogynists think in terms of the mother/whore dichotomy, where they hold that women can only be “mothers” or “whores.” Another variant model is the one alleging that certain men think in terms of a virgin/whore dichotomy, in which women who do not adhere to an Abrahamic standard of moral purity are considered “whores”.

The term misogynist is frequently used in a looser sense as a term of derision to describe anyone who holds a distasteful view about women as a group. Therefore, someone like Schopenhauer who proposes naturalistic reasons for various behaviors common to women is often regarded as a misogynist. As another, particularly striking example, man who is considered by many including himself to be “a great lover of women,” is often regarded as being misogynist. Examples of this type of man would be Giacomo Casanova and Don Juan, who were both reputed for their many libertine affairs with women.

In feminist theory, misogyny is a negative attitude towards women as a group, and so need not fully determine a misogynist's attitude towards each individual woman. The fact that someone holds misogynist views may not prevent him or her from having positive relationships with some women.

Conversely, simply having negative relationships with some women does not necessarily mean someone holds misogynistic views. The term, like most negative descriptions of attitudes, is used as an epithet and applied to a wide variety of behaviors and attitudes - often as a personal attack.

As with other terms, the more antipathetic one's position is in regards to misogyny, the larger the number of misogynists and the greater variety of attitudes and behaviors who fall into one's perception of “misogynist”. This is, of course, the subject of much controversy and debate with opinions ranging widely as to the extent and breadth of misogyny in society.

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Of course those both sides have warred against the one other for centuries. In America, this has given rise to Laws that are like a weird caboodle of both Misandry and Misogyny.

“How so?” You ask.

Well think of it this way– In terms of Misandry, the law is more likely to lean in favor of the women, even if the women actually haven't done anything to deserve being rewarded–especially if they were the ones who caused the problems in the first place. The courts are more likely to grant custody to an drug-addicted woman who'd just as soon as sell her children for drugs over a father who hasn't even touched drugs in his whole life, and is actually a great dad. And female criminals? They practically get off scoot-free, since how the law often goes with the centuries old assumption that a woman couldn't ever commit such evil, at least not without being hoodwinked into it. Just take a look at all those female pedophiles. they're seen as not being as dangerous as male pedophiles, because all males are sex fiends and therefore would want to do it with a older woman, even if they were only 10 years old. the only time anybody would object was if the boy in question had been too young to think about sex… like a 3-year-old boy.

So they get away with it while male pedophiles are seen as the ultimate evil, just because they're men… and we all know men are sex fiends. RIGGGHHTTT.

Then on the other side of the coin, there's still a lot of things that goes on in a courthouse as well as the laws that are downright Misogynistic. Unfortunately, a lot of people still have a “Blame the victim” mentality. I witnessed a example of this in Las Vegas while I was on vacation. The news were on and they were televising a live court case of male teenagers who had raped an 10 year old girl in a bathroom stall at school. And the defense was actually blaming the 10 year old girl for dressing like a “slut”, and commenting how a lot of kids were having sex younger now. So therefore, she had to be sending mixed signals, and thus it wasn't really rape. *rolls eyes* The sad thing? Even though the defense didn't win, they ALMOST did.

All because society has double standards when it comes to sex. If a male loses his virginity very early at a young age and sleeps around, he's a massive stud who's super cool! But if a woman does the same thing, then she's just a filthy, filthy slut! hell, she even deserves to get raped for being such a slut, right??

Yay, double standards! what would we do without the mixture of misandry and misogyny in our society?

I'm on hitatus while I redo one of my webcomics. Be sure to check it out when I'n done! :)

heh, I didn't mean for it to get so long…. but I kind of felt that if I didn't basically sum up what Misandry and Misogyny was in a Cochise and clear way, then there would be confusion over what I was talking about. I figured if I laid out the definitions, that would get that part out of the way…

so that we could get down to the gritty-nitty. That is, whenever the battle of the sexes were having a strange effect on our culture where it was making things worse for the general human population.

After all, if you blend Misogyny and Misandry together you get misanthropy–Hatred of human beings in general. And if the battle of the sexes accidentally create a whole misanthropic culture where people are less likely to trust anybody at all, then that would be just terrible.

people would run around completely paronid that even their own family members would back-stab them in order to look out for their own best interests. Because according to Misanthropy, all human beings suck and has nothing good going for them.

And yes, I fully expect Kypuol to come in and comment on this. it ought to be a hoot. :D

I'm on hitatus while I redo one of my webcomics. Be sure to check it out when I'n done! :)

That was fascinating! Until now I didn't know there was a word for the opposite of misogyny. I like your balanced take on the issue as well.

The sexes have been warring for quite some time and it really bothers me. I like to think of it as a pendulum… if one side pushes too hard, it's eventually going to swing back the other way. So we need to just ease the pendulum's movement to a stop, right in the middle. Going after either side in a spirit of vengeance isn't ever going to even things out.

Aurora MoonAfter all, if you blend Misogyny and Misandry together you get misanthropy–Hatred of human beings in general. And if the battle of the sexes accidentally create a whole misanthropic culture where people are less likely to trust anybody at all, then that would be just terrible.

To a certain degree I think we do have Misanthropic situation going on around us to varying degrees. General lack of faith and trust in institutions and society around the world is at an all time high. With so many very polar positions going on about the various evils of humanity its getting difficult not to be down on ourselves as a species.

Just as you have sub groups for misogyny and misandry I could easily see similar sub-types defined for misanthropists. Like various kinds of anarchists, and I know I've met extremists that would be all for human extinction for various religious, environmental or even animal rights causes.

Social psychology is such a tricky matter. People seem inclined to mistrust and dislike anything at the drop of a hat and it's hard getting them to just chill out for a few moments to look at the matter calmly or logically. We seem to be taught from day one to hate things unfamiliar to us.

AshenSkyeLoved how you presented this. Nice and balanced, as Hawk said. :)

ditto

also saidPeople seem inclined to mistrust and dislike anything at the drop of a hat and it's hard getting them to just chill out for a few moments to look at the matter calmly or logically. We seem to be taught from day one to hate things unfamiliar to us.

I don't disagree, not at all, but I think it's interesting that this is said in association with a discussion about relations between the sexes.

From day one, how does it happen, when does it happen that one gender becomes so unfamiliar? I have to guess that most of us initially generalize a gender by the first representatives we encounter: Mom and Dad. And then . . . ?Freud did back-flips trying to answer this, but few of his theories hold up to the tests of time and culture.

Part of the problem these days isn't really gender but a feeling that there's little individual control over one's personal situation. Taxes, politics, social mores, a media that distracts us with the inane antics of celebrities instead of letting us know which legislators bother to show up to vote and how they vote. Et cetera. And with this sense of being a human puppet comes fear and anger, or vice versa. We start looking for the source of this malaise. Is it the Islamists? (An aside: that is such an uncool word—can't we just use mad dog extremists to include every violent fanatic?) Is it that color over there? Or is it the “other” half of the world: gender.

That above para is such a generality and over-simplification, but I think the problem has its source in something that's not based strictly on being afraid of differences. Just not sure what.